


To the End

by Hannelore_Grace



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Amputation, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Dehumanization, Hurt No Comfort, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-04
Updated: 2019-04-04
Packaged: 2020-01-04 13:36:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18344750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hannelore_Grace/pseuds/Hannelore_Grace
Summary: Harold Jenkins never finds the journal. Instead, he has to take out his vengeance in a much more pedestrian fashion.





	To the End

**Author's Note:**

> Please read the tags!

It wasn’t impossible to get drugs in rehab, but it certainly wasn’t easy, either. Particularly not when Klaus wanted to give the _illusion_ of being sober—that meant getting the good stuff, not the junk that would have him tweaking all night long. 

So there were droughts, if you will. Times when the supply ran low and Klaus started to flinch away from the shadows in the corners of his eyes. Times when a gargling moan would echo through the room and Klaus would shove his fingers in his ears to stop himself from shivering right off the side of his bunk.

It had been two days since his last hit, and the (lovely, helpful, well-endowed) orderly who was set to bring him the next batch wasn’t due back on the ward for another twelve hours. A recipe for disaster, if there ever was one. 

And disaster, it would seem, came in the form of a fresh ghost—fresh in the sense that it was one Klaus hadn’t seen before; he had no idea when it had actually passed. At first he didn’t truly notice it, slumped unmoving on the ground as it was. It could have passed for a pile of clothes, and it was only the faint blur around it—like it wasn’t quite ready to manifest, caught halfway between Dead and Dead But A Nuisance—that gave it away.

Klaus skirted around it on his way to group, eyes carefully avoiding lingering for too long on the pulpy mass of the spirit. Sometimes, if he pretended he couldn’t see them, they wouldn’t start screaming.

-oOo-

Harold got rid of its eyes first.

He’d met enough folks in prison to know—leave no witnesses. Not even the victim itself. If everything went according to plan, it wouldn’t ever get a chance to give a witness statement, but Harold was taking every precaution.

If it never saw him, it could never identify him in a line up.

It screamed as he pushed the hot iron into its eye, thrashing hard but uselessly against the ropes Harold had wound around its forearms, shins, and waist. He had to hold its head in something like a chokehold to keep it still while he worked, but he was sure not to hold so tight to suffocate it.

He wanted to hear every wail.

-oOo-

After group, it was still there.

Still hunkered on the ground, head drooped so low Klaus couldn’t even tell if it was male or female. He gingerly stepped around it once more, tip-toeing by on his way to dig a cigarette out of his meager belongings. 

His trembling hand was still struggling to get the cigarette lit when it moved, a slow roll of its upper body that cracked and crunched like newly broken bones. Its head finally lifted, turning hollow eyes up toward the ceiling.

Klaus shrieked.

-oOo-

Harold wasn’t a hasty man—not since the hammer.

He worked the body with as much care as a surgeon, albeit to different ends. He savored every cut, for each one was accompanied by a whimper or a sob that was as satisfying as a fine wine. The burns brought their own joy as well; how it shook when he held the iron to its skin until it fizzled and popped. He imagined it was as pleasurable as having a partner writhing underneath him, trembling with their climax. 

But when he began cutting away pieces, that was the most delectable treat of all. It screamed and sobbed with every bit of itself that it lost. First one finger for every year of Harold’s life he had wasted aching to be one of them. Then the toes, because Harold appreciated symmetry. The ears next, because they were big and round and too tempting to leave behind. Then its nose, the dribble of snot from its tears quickly replaced by a flood of blood when the knife sliced through cartilage.

Between each amputation, he waited, biding his time until the risk of death by shock had passed. He cared for it, giving it an IV of fluids and moving it close to a heater to keep it comfortable (ha) until it was adequately recovered for the next phase.

Nevertheless, he was surprised when it lived through the removal of its lower jaw. He had done it on a whim, too taken by the crunch of its mandible breaking under his fist to stop himself from pounding until its lips were little more than pulp and its mouth hung open and askew, bloody drool pouring out onto its lap.

Enamored by the sight, he took out his knife and set to work, cutting through muscle and bone until its face was hardly recognizable as human.

It looked like poetry.

-oOo-

The _thing_ was something straight from a horror movie, or maybe just Klaus’s nightmares. Its eye sockets and nose were little more than charred abysses, and the lower half of its face was all gore and bone fragments. Klaus retched when it moved again, its exposed muscles flexing and spasming. Each movement was accompanied by a faint gurgle and the slick sound of bloody flesh shifting.

Shaking, Klaus stooped to pick up the cigarette he had dropped and redoubled his efforts to get it lit. He was going to need something a hell of a lot stronger to get through this fresh hell, but finding his orderly meant scampering by the thing once more, and he couldn’t stomach the thought without a bit of nicotine to steel his nerves.

-oOo-

Harold knew his time with it was limited now. Even with fluids and transfusions from himself, it had lost too much blood to survive much longer. He knew every action from now on had to count, had to mean something.

His eyes fell on the tattoo, untouched on its forearm, and he knew right away what his final act would be. He picked up a chisel and a mallet—all the better to shatter the radius and the ulna—and grimly set to work. Once he had cracked his way through the bones, it took little more than a cleaver and one hard chop to separate the hand and wrist from the arm. The tattoo was splattered in blood, but still completely intact. He would clean it later; for now, he needed to bear witness.

He kneeled in front of the chair and rested one hand on each leg, squeezing as if to offer comfort as its blood poured from its arm. It was shivering so hard he thought perhaps it was having some sort of fit, and inarticulate noises poured from the mess that used to be its mouth.

“When you find your brother in the next life, be sure and tell him he’s next,” Harold said. He couldn’t be sure if it had heard or understood, but he had faith that one way or another his message would be conveyed. 

Gradually, its shaking was giving way to stillness. He almost wished he had left its eyes so he could watch as they dimmed. Instead, he reached to cradle its throat, the fluttering thrum of its pulse slowly fading beneath his thumb. He stayed crouched there for some time after the pulse had stopped altogether, feeling the body cool beneath his hand until his knees ached from pressing into the hardwood floor for so long.

He tore himself away and scooped the hand up off the ground.

He had work to do.

-oOo-

The thing was as tenacious as Ben, refusing to leave even when Klaus was teetering toward all-out organ failure from swallowing pill after pill. He turned a corner, and there it was, curled on the ground like a potted plant. He jogged into an alley to meet a dealer, and there it was, almost indiscernible from the bags of garbage piled next to the dumpster. He gasped back to life in the back of an ambulance only to see a news report of Dear Old Papa’s death, and there it was, staring up at him with its empty, beseeching eyes from the bottom of his stretcher.

It cradled its stump of an arm to its chest, holding it like it was something precious.

“Shoo! Go away!” he yelled at it. “Can’t you see I’m in mourning!” He gestured to the TV as if the sightless monstrosity would understand.

-oOo-

Later, the mystery of the missing monocle would be all but laughable in the face of something much more immediately horrifying.

Later, Luther would find a hand, wrapped in cloth and a bow and pegged to their front door.

Later, Klaus would look to the thing slumped at Mother’s feet on the kitchen floor, and he would know, even before the fingerprint comes back to confirm their worst fears. Even before they saw the tattoo and they all looked around at each other, everyone present and accounted for except for one. Even before Ben stepped out of the shadows and rested a hand on its—no, _Diego’s_ \-- shoulder.

“I’ll take care of him,” he will promise, and Klaus will sob.


End file.
